Django charts - date&time axis - django

Question

I have one model which looks like this:
class Measurement(models.Model):
date = models.DateField('date')
time = models.TimeField('time')
Q = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=6)
P = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=6)
f = models.DecimalField(max_digits=10, decimal_places=6)
In my views, I would like to represent it. So I made this function:
def plotMeas(request):
# Count the events
c = Measurement.objects.all()
c = c.count()
# Variables
i = 0
a = [0]
P = a*c
Q = a*c
t = a*c
# Save dP_L1 & dQ_L1 in lists
for i in range(c):
meas = Measurement.objects.get(pk = i+1)
P [i] = meas.P
Q [i] = meas.Q
t [c-1-i] = i*10
if c > 100:
P = P[-100:]
Q = Q[-100:]
t [i] = t[-100:]
# Construct the graph
fig = Figure()
q = fig.add_subplot(211)
q.set_xlabel("time (minutes ago)")
q.set_ylabel("Q (VAR)")
p = fig.add_subplot(212)
p.set_xlabel("time (minutes ago)")
p.set_ylabel("P (W)")
p.plot(t,P, 'go-')
q.plot(t,Q, 'o-')
canvas = FigureCanvas(fig)
response = HttpResponse(content_type='image/png')
canvas.print_png(response)
return response
However, I would like that the horizontal axis would show the date and the time (saved in the model). Does anyone know how to do it?

Answer 1

Have a look at the documentation for plot_date. Conveniently plot_date takes similar arguments to plot. A call might look like:
p.plot_date(sequence_of_datetime_objects, y_axis_values, 'go-')
Using matplotlib.dates you can then customize the format of your x-axis labels.
A simple example:
The following will specify that the x-axis displays only every third month in the format Jan '09 (assuming English-speaking locale).
p.xaxis.set_major_locator(mdates.MonthLocator(interval=3))
p.xaxis.set_major_formatter(mdates.DateFormatter("%b '%y"))
Since you have dates and times stored separately you may either want to
change your model to use a DateTimeField, or
use Python to combine them.
For example:
import datetime as dt
t1 = dt.time(21,0,1,2) # 21:00:01.2
d1 = dt.date.today()
dt1 = dt.datetime.combine(d1,t1)
# result: datetime.datetime(2011, 4, 15, 21, 0, 1, 2)
To iterate over two sequences and combine them you might use zip (code for illustrative purposes only, not necessarily optimized):
sequence_of_datetime_objects = []
for a_date, a_time in zip(sequence_of_date_objects, sequence_of_time_objects):
sequence_of_datetime_objects.append(dt.datetime.combine(a_date, a_time))
Feel free to open another question if you get stuck implementing the specifics.